40% of gay couples Christian

By Dan Harrison

FOUR in ten same-sex couples are Christians, according to a detailed snapshot of the nation's gay community based on the latest census data.

Christians represent a smaller proportion of same-sex couples than heterosexual couples, of which more than two-thirds affiliate with the religion.

Same-sex partners are more likely to report no religion than heterosexual partners, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.Credit:Justin McManus

Same-sex partners are more likely than heterosexual partners to be Buddhists, but less likely to be Hindus or Muslims, according to a portrait of the 33,714 same-sex couples counted in last year's census.

Same-sex partners are more likely to report no religion (48 per cent) than heterosexual partners (21 per cent), according to a paper released yesterday by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Advertisement

As in previous censuses, there were more male than female same-sex couples, although the gap between the number of male and female same-sex couples has narrowed since 1996, when the bureau began collecting data on same-sex couples. Then, there were 137 male couples for every 100 female couples. In 2011 there were 109 male couples for every 100 female couples.

Nationally, same-sex couples account for just 0.7 per cent of all couple families, but this is more than double the proportion recorded in 1996. The proportion of same-sex couples varied considerably by age.

Same-sex partners accounted for 1.6 per cent of all partners aged 15-24 years, but just 0.1 per cent of all partners aged 65 and over.

Female same-sex couples had a slightly younger age profile than male couples.

In each state, same-sex couples accounted for a greater proportion of couples in capital cities than of couples living outside the capitals. Same-sex couples accounted for 1.1 per cent of all couples in Sydney, but only 0.5 per cent of couples in the rest of NSW.

The gayest local government area of Sydney is the City of Sydney, where same-sex couples make up 11.3 per cent of all couples. The local government areas with the next highest proportions of same sex pairings were Marrickville (7.4 per cent), Leichhardt (3.5 per cent) and Woollahra (2.7 per cent).

Most same-sex couples lived together without children or other relatives: 95 per cent of male couples and 75 per cent of female couples had this arrangement. Just over one in 10 same-sex couples had children living with them. Same-sex couples with children on average had fewer children than heterosexual couples. More than half of all same-sex couples with families had only one child in the family, while heterosexual couples were more likely to have two children than one.

The proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living with same-sex partners was slightly higher (0.9 per cent) than among non-indigenous Australians (0.7 per cent). But the bureau said once adjustments were made for the younger age profile of the indigenous population, indigenous people were less likely to be in a same-sex relationship than non-indigenous Australians.

Overseas-born people living in same-sex relationships were much more likely to come from New Zealand or England than the other leading birthplaces for people living in couples in Australia - China, Vietnam, Italy and India.

In line with this, same-sex partners were more likely to speak only English at home than heterosexual couples.